I stepped on a dead bee that was in the carpet. Gave me quite a zinger to my instep.

Scott

Logged

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

My wife was barefoot and stepped on dead bees laying in front of a hive and I pulled six out of one foot.....and me I just rolled in the grass laughing at her. Big mistake!.....she beat me like a redheaded step child while I was on the ground rolling around made me wish I had taken those stings.

Yeah, I don't know how long for, but dead bees can sting you alright. I have had it happen a couple of times on the back deck, my adult daughter once in the house, definitely a recently dead bee, it was in the night. The dog too. Our hives are about 15 metres from the back door, as the bee flies.

Something a little different happened to me yesterday. I got "stung" by week-old stingers lodged in my bee-gloves!

I have 13 hives in Costa Rica, and they are very aggressive africanized bees. After a day at the apiary, it is common to have hundreds of stingers covering my gloves. I have learned that I need to wear two pairs of gloves so that the stinger doesn't reach my skin -- I wear rubber dish washing gloves under the typical leather / canvas beekeeping gloves.

Yesterday, I needed to do some weeding around the hives. I wasn't going to open the hives so I decided not to put on both pairs of gloves and instead just put on the leather gloves, figuring that the bees wouldn't be too defensive. Luckily, the bees were very calm and not a single bee buzzed me as I was weeding. However, I kept feeling little pricks in my hands as I was working with the machete and the shovel. Sure enough, it was from the stingers that were still in my gloves from last week's inspection.

A couple hours after weeding, my hands started to itch and there were about 50 little welts, like mosquito bites, covering my hands. I chewed up a leaf of plantain and plastered the affected areas with the paste, and that helped a little bit. But I woke several time during the night due to the intense itching.

So I guess that potent venom can remain in a bee stinger for some time after it has been torn away from the body of the bee!

I did a removal in a vacant house about three years ago. Cut the plywood floor out to remove them. Went back about ten days later and was stung by a dead bee on my arm as I was putting the floor back in place. I always tell people to not go bare foot outside anywhere near a hive that I had just removed for a minimum of two days. Could be some dead bees in the grass you don't see.